


An Inheritance

by coffeeandoranges



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, I Love Jack Crawford With My Whole Heart and You Can't Stop Me, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-27 00:18:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15674199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeandoranges/pseuds/coffeeandoranges
Summary: One day after his retirement Jack Crawford receives a lush check in the mail accompanied by a note, in elaborate calligraphy:For Bella.





	An Inheritance

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [damnslippyplanet](https://damnslippyplanet.tumblr.com/) and Janice Poon's [blog](https://janicepoonart.blogspot.com/2015/07/episode-5-contorno.html) for helping find the name of the dish the Pazzis served to Jack in s03e05 _Contorno_.

 

 

 

One day after his retirement Jack Crawford receives a lush check in the mail accompanied by a note, in elaborate calligraphy: _For Bella._

 

Jack doesn’t know where the good doctor gets his money, but he isn’t going to ask. He hopes whoever it was, was delicious. Depending on their accommodations, it would have been—and _how_ Jack missed those dinner parties, despite himself--unless the pair was reduced to hiding out in some atrocious hole in the woods. (Will would be delighted… Hannibal less so.)

Jack couldn’t care less where they were.

After a short debate with himself, he goes to the bank. It is still early on a Saturday morning and the lines are not long.

Jack Crawford deposits all $500,000 in cash, straight into his checking account. The receipt is crisp in his hands as he leaves the counter.

 

 

The next morning, he earmarks $50,000 of it for the widow Pazzi. Not so gifted with the pen as Hannibal, he buys her a Hallmark card and wires her the cash, hoping she will see the gesture for what it is: respect and thanks, one widower to another.

 _For the Pappardelle alla Lepre,_ he writes in the margins of the card.

 

 

 

The next person who needs to be compensated is impossible to compensate.

He imagines a girl at a university somewhere, opening her mail.

He sees the card he would have tucked into her campus mailbox with a check and note not unlike the one he just received: _I’m so sorry, Abigail._ He sees her thin trembling fingers handling the check.

He pictures extending the girl an internship when she’s done with her schooling, the other half of his long-due apology.

 

 

 

In another world, it would have been the largest slice of the check.

 

 

 

In this world, he thinks, selfishly, of his own team.

 

He tosses $25,000 each to Brian Zeller and Jimmy Price. They don’t need it—the FBI’s compensation program is more than adequate—but he feels a sliver of regret for the way he never shepherded their careers, how he’d focused on Will Graham to the detriment of the dedicated team around him.

They e-mail Jack their thanks, along with a picture of the two of them in Hawaii, faces broiled red by the sun.

 

 

 

 

 

He sends $50,000 to Miriam Lass.

The sum is both not enough and too much.

He takes comfort in her FBI pension, the same amount as it is for his, plus a security detail also furnished by the FBI, that will follow her around until Lecter’s body has gone cold.

What Miriam Lass needs is more than money.

But money is all Jack has to give.

 

 

 

 

What is left of the check is difficult to divide. The need is so great it paralyzes him.

He thinks of the victims’ families, left to carry on alone and battered, with no news crews, no book deals, no lucrative stash from the FBI forthcoming.

But he can’t give them what they deserve. Hannibal would have to send him a similar check every day for the rest of his miserable, ill-deserved life to repay the Ripper’s victims.

 

That burden is not Jack’s to carry.

 

 

 

 

He sends Frederick Chilton $25,000.

He knows the man has medical expenses, after all.

He knows $25,000 won’t cover them either.

 

 

 

He sends $100,000 to Molly Foster, knowing, even as he creases his letter of apology, that she will send the money back.

 

 

She does.

Jack calls her when the check doesn’t go through.

 

“Molly,” he says.

Her voice is thick on the other end of the line.

“I don’t want anything he’s touched,” she says.

He hears her emphasis on the word _anything_. Disgust in the way she says the word _he_.

Jack doesn’t ask if she means Hannibal Lecter, or her husband.

 

 

 

Briefly, Jack considers the possibility of sending a sum of money to the Verger household. The irony of that, however, makes him laugh out loud. Besides, he will never find their address.

 

He hopes they stay unfindable.

 

 

 

The money he marked for Molly Foster goes to someone else instead.

 

He spoke to her for only a few minutes, the day after Dolarhyde failed to die. He remembers the dignity, the righteous set of her mouth, the calm fire in her eyes even though he knew she was not looking at him, or at anything.

That day, he had felt so ashamed of the desire that welled up in the pool of his belly for her, the way she reminded him of Bella, he’d resolved to stay away. The last thing the woman needed was another damaged man around her doorstep. He hopes she smiles when she reads her name on the check with her fingers.

He hopes she smiles when she reads his.

 

 

 

 

 

Jack often takes Saturday mornings to balance his checkbook. That week is more interesting than his usual expenses, but he ticks them off with his usual scrupulous honesty:

 

$50,000 for Vittoria Pazzi of Firenze.

  
$50,000, together, for Zeller and Price.

  
$50,000 for Miriam Lass of the FBI, injured in the line of duty.

  
$25,000 for Frederick Chilton, M.D.

  
~~$100,000 for Molly Foster Graham.~~

$100,000 for Reba McClane, the woman clothed with the sun.

 

 

($100,000 that never went to Abigail Hobbs, deceased.)

 

 

 

.

 

 

 

That leaves the rest, $225,000, free to a good home, which Jack knows was likely intended for him even if the pair had known some of the payout would be shared, but which Jack’s sense of duty will not allow him to keep.

 

 

 

“Sir?” the teller says, looking in askance at Jack Crawford as he withdraws nearly a quarter million dollars from the maintenance account he set up for this unexpected gift, an inheritance he claims he received from an old friend.

“All of it,” says Jack.

He’s put on his warmest coat. It’s winter in Maryland.

This is the last check he will write out of this account, and as he had realized deep in a brandy the night before, this one merits a personal delivery.

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

 

 

Jack’s footsteps crunch in the day-old snow as he makes his way up the path to a brownstone condominium in Silver Springs, Maryland.

The lawn and the steps are immaculately maintained—the home of tidy, efficient people, who raised a tidy, efficient daughter.

He knocks with one gloved hand and the door swings open.

 

 

“Hello Mrs. Katz,” he says to the woman who opens the door.

 

 

Lydia Katz is beautiful as she was that day at the funeral and just as well-dressed in a grey silk blouse and wool skirt.

 

 

“Jack Crawford,” she says. It is impossible to read her expression.

 

She keeps a certain stillness in her eyes even as old and freshly-surfaced grief darkens her face at the sight of him.

 

“Please come in,” she says. “And forgive us, you’ve caught us at an odd moment.”

Jack enters behind her and the hallway widens to reveal a large, open-plan living room, tastefully furnished with clean lines and neutral colors. White couches are arranged around a coffee table made of glass.

 

Mr. and Mrs. Katz are not alone.

Stationed on the couches—as if waiting to spring up and go somewhere--are three young men dressed in sport coats and slacks. The Katz sons.

Of course.

 

Beverly was the oldest of four.

 

 

_(“Beverly was... like a big sister to the FBI team,” as Price had called her at the funeral, his hands and voice shaking as he read his speech from off a piece of paper.)_

 

 

“And you know Thomas,” says Lydia Katz, indicating her husband standing by the mantle.

 

“This is Jonathan, Michael, and Jake,” she adds, more for Jack’s benefit than by way of introduction. He saw the Katz sons at the funeral as well, but he wouldn’t have been able to recall any of their names.

 

They all look like they might share Beverly’s grin if they smiled.

 

“We are on our way to a family reunion,” says Thomas Katz. “When you walked in, it was almost like she…”

 

He starts crying. His eyes flicker over a photo of Beverly on the mantle—as a girl, violin in hand—and then just as quickly, he glances away.

 

Jack can see Beverly’s father clearly; how his grief is the least well-integrated or healed.

 

“Forgive me for interrupting,” says Jack. “I’m so sorry.”

 

He is standing there holding the check with an outstretched hand. It is a laughable thing here, in the Katz living room.

Jonathan Katz--who is the oldest of his siblings now—gives Jack a hard look.

 

 _Sorry?_   A mocking voice inside his head asks Jack. He has no right to be here with these people, not when he’d returned their daughter to them in pieces.

Yet, he is here for a reason, and even if they refuse him, which he suspected they might, they deserve the offer.

 

“A few weeks ago I received a check in the mail for $500,000,” says Jack.

The Katz family watches him, tear-stained and wary to varying degrees. Jack knows his presence has re-opened wounds, and he knows that is his fault too.

 

“Some went to his victims,” says Jack.

 

Not strictly true, since Reba McClane was the Dragon’s victim, not Lecter’s, but Jack  
Crawford has never been rigorous with the truth, not the way Beverly was.

 

“The rest I wanted to give to you,” Jack says. He lays the check down on the coffee table.

 

“No,” says Thomas Katz immediately. “Where did this money come from?”

 

Jack can feel his heart sink, even though he’d known this would be the reaction.

 

“You know where,” Jack says, his voice hoarse.

 

“This is an insult,” says Jonathan. He reaches for the check— and takes it in his fingers as if to rip it in half. Jack doesn’t stop him.

“Jonathan, don’t,” one of the younger sons says to his brother. Michael Katz-- Jack can tell that he is the quietest of the Katz boys.

“Jonathan,” says Lydia Katz. Her sharp tone cuts through any argument. “Put it down.”

 

Thomas Katz is staring at the check with the look of a man haunted.

 

“It is an insult,” says Jack, finding his voice. He nods at Jonathan. “Beyond an insult. It’s horrifying. It’s disgusting, even. But it’s—”

 

He swallows, trying not to belittle the Katzes’s grief with his own.

 

“It’s yours if you want it.”

 

Across the coffee table he can see Lydia Katz’s mind working, an expression that reminds him painfully of her daughter, the same awful practicality.

 

“Jake, you are in medical school,” she says.

 

“Mom, no,” says the youngest son. “Please don’t. Not on my behalf.”

 

Mrs. Katz takes the check from Jonathan’s hand.

 

“On mine, then,” she says smoothly. “Jake-- if she were here, your sister would want to give you everything. The world if she could. You know she would.”

 

Jake looks at his mother with red, tired eyes.

Jack can read him too, the youngest of the family, the one they doted on. Beverly’s baby brother, and probably her favorite.

 

Jack closes his eyes.

“Thank you, Mr. Crawford,” says Lydia, touching his arm.

“It is the least I can do,” he says, flinching at the gentle pressure of her hand. “It’s not enough.”

 

 

“All the same,” Beverly’s mother says. “Thank you for coming.”

 

He is almost disturbed by how easily her pearly smile covers up for the anguish in her eyes. He knows, from his years of profiling people, from his careful observation of her and the other Katzes, how much she is doing for her family. She is the still point in a shattered world, the one who gathers up her husband and sons, who will not let her family drown.

But Jack also knows the corollary: one day she might drown herself, trying to save them all.

 

“Thank you, Mrs. Katz,” he says, holding her arm as she held his, trying to impart some kind of comfort with his touch, knowing how ill-equipped he is to provide comfort.

He recollects his coat from Mrs. Katz and leaves the Katz family in their living room, beaten down by memory.

 

As the door closes behind him, Jack can still see a glimpse of Thomas Katz, staring again at the photo of his daughter’s face, lost in her ghost.

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

 

It’s been years but Jack still needs to find a bar sometimes and fall apart over Beverly.

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

 

He wakes the next morning in his own bed, grossly hungover, with no proof of how he arrived home except the crumpled receipt for the cab in his wallet.

 

 

 

.

 

 

“I would, but I’m still recovering from last night,” he says into the phone.

 

Zeller and Price have rung him.

They’re back from Hawaii and want to catch up.

 

Jack wants to sit in the dark of his apartment—which he’d bought after selling his and Bella’s old house-- and think of the dead.

 

“You sound—not good,” says Price, the cheer vanishing from his voice.

 

“I paid a visit to the Katzes yesterday,” says Jack.

 

“Oh,” says Price. Then he adds gently, “Maybe next time we should drink together, Jack.”

 

“Maybe next time,” says Jack. He hears the clink of the mail sliding into his slot, and gets up mechanically.

 

“I’ll ring you this weekend,” says Jack, remembering himself. “I want to hear about the Aloha state.”

 

“Absolutely,” says Price. “You can count on it.”

 

 

.

 

 

 

Jack hangs up the phone and sifts through his mail.

 

 

 

He’s not… surprised, exactly, to find another strange envelope in his mail.

 

(He wonders how they’re keeping tabs on him. It’s not a comfortable line of investigation to open.)

 

He’s not surprised, either, when he opens the envelope, and finds another check enclosed, almost identical to the first, written out to Jack Crawford for $500,000.

 

Will’s handwriting this time.

 

He fishes in the envelope for the card, but as he knew there wouldn’t be one this time, there isn’t one.

 

He stands in his kitchen holding another half-million-dollar check and part of him wants to throw his head back and howl.

 

The other part of him waits for the other shoe to drop, and it does.

 

The phone rings.

 

 

.

 

 

Jack picks it up and cradles the receiver on his shoulder.

 

“Hello, Jack.”

 

The blood drains out of Jack’s face at the sound of his voice, even if he can’t stifle a burst of bitter laughter either.

 

“Hello, Will.”

 

Graham gets to his point quickly: “You won’t be able to trace this phone call.”

Jack smiles without any real warmth. “I’d almost be disappointed if I could.”

 

“I don’t have much time to talk,” Will adds.

 

Jack can only dimly imagine the circumstances of Will’s life, but he is sure they don’t leave a lot of room for social calls.

 

“I suppose not.”

 

Will is silent for a moment anyway, as if choosing carefully from a torrent of words he’d like to say to his old boss.

 

“You have to spend this one on yourself,” says Will.

 

“Oh?” Jack raises an eyebrow. “You know I won’t.”

 

“Oh, I know,” says Will. “I know you. Awful and righteous, like God.”

Then, in a whisper that raises the hairs on the back of Jack’s neck, he says, “I’m going to repay you, Jack. And you’re going to repay everyone else.”

 

Jack makes an incredulous noise.

 

“There isn’t enough money in this world.”

 

“I know,” says Will.

 

He sounds pathetic to Jack’s ears, all whine and whimper like a beaten dog. Yet he sounds sleek and pampered too, like a pet.

 

“You _don’t_ know, Will. You can’t make up for something like this,” says Jack. “Any of it.”

 

“I can try,” says Graham, dropping to a hush once more.

 

“I guess you can,” says Jack. “I certainly can’t stop you.”

 

He knows he sounds flip, but he doesn’t care. Not fresh off a day with the Katz family. He’s about to hang up the phone, patience spent, when Will’s next words coax him to stay on a moment longer.

 

“But I will try, Jack.” Will speaks ardently, injects every word with force even as his voice never rises above a whisper. “I will spend the rest of my life trying.”

 

Jack hears his heart thud in his chest. He can hear a fleck of truth--finally—in Will’s voice.

 

It’s not the way he would choose to spend his life, paying for another man’s sins, even as he shares the spoils, but then, he supposes, he’s not Will Graham.

 

“I hope you do,” says Jack.

 

Jack blinks, realizing he’s still holding the check in his hand.

 

 

He can’t even begin to imagine how he’ll spend it, or if gifts this monstrous can ever bear decent fruit.

 

 

“Goodbye Jack,” says Will. He is already fading away, ghost-like.

 

Jack sees him for a second, in his mind’s eye, lounging in some opera house lobby with Lecter, Graham’s face pure as a Botticelli.

 

For a split second, Jack considers asking him: _was it worth it? Graham?_

Jack is curious, after all.

 

 

His own soul has never been for sale. 

 

 

Instead he pulls the phone closer, and lowers his voice to match Will’s.

 

“Godspeed, Will Graham,” says Jack.

 

The other end of the line goes dead with a click.

 

 

 

.


End file.
